Jack's Log from Alaska

Valdez

2008-07-14T12:23:00.000-08:00

Thursday, July 10th, 2008

Well it has been quite a while since I updated. Valdez has been good; the run seems to be a bit bigger than forecast, although it is still well below last year’s. That was expected though, since the fish seem to come every other year. What it means is that next year should be another really good year while the one after that will resemble this year, and so on.

We have actually been doing pretty well so far though. We are a decent amount above the fleet average in terms of fish caught, so you can’t complain about that. One thing we can complain about, though, is that the price is only .25 per pound, which is robbery considering what the canneries sell the product for. Another thing to complain about is that during 2 out of the 4 openers we have gotten so far our buyer has ordered all of their nets out of the water because of capacity issues at the processors. It really sucks because those days we were doing really well and could have made a really good day out of it but had to stop. We did manage to have a 66000 pound day once, which was great. Anytime you make 1700 dollars in 14 hour period is a great thing. Out of the 4 days that we have fished, we have had 28000 pounds, 66000 pounds, 40000 pounds, and 32000 pounds, which puts us at 166000 for all of Valdez. Combined with our Chalmers earnings, we have already grossed over $100000, which means that I’ve already made $10000. I’m pretty excited about that because that is the number that I was aiming to have at the end of the season, and here I am sitting on it with 2 months of fishing left.

We haven’t had any major breakdowns thus far, although one is probably looming around the corner. There have been minor things of course, but nothing that we couldn’t fix easily or work around. Jonathan, on the other hand has had a breakdown every opener thus far. He actually has yet to fish the entire 14 hour period that defines an opener. It seems that the Cat-Bil-Lu is not quite the dream boat that he had in mind; it is actually kind of a worn out old boat. It doesn’t help that he worked the equipment hard in Chalmers, but it is definitely having more than its share of maintenance problems. His engine controls went out, he got web in the prop, and his skiff lost all of its towing power. In the few sets that he has managed to get in, he has only caught 50000 pounds so far. He’s pretty down about it all, but there is only so much you can do to prevent breakdowns on a boat that you don’t know. Bill could predict everything because he had worked on all of it, but Jonathan doesn’t have that luxury.

Chalmers Update #2

2008-07-02T01:24:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, June 24th, 2008

Oh man that skiff is going to be the death of us. Yesterday and today it has been overheating because of a coolant leak and a bad water pump on the engine. That and the electrical system seem to be getting screwier every day. At this point the skiff is working on a set-by-set basis, and after every set Jamel has to check the fluids to see what he has to do to make sure it will get through the next tow. It’s pretty bad.

Today was nice because we actually did nap for a bit. That doesn’t happen much on the Jonathan S, so when it does you have to take full advantage of it.

The good news is that Valdez is creeping up on us. We have probably a week until we head over there, maybe less if the chum run here in Chalmers dies. It is already showing signs of dying off, with the catch rate falling, the fish size increasing, and the fish showing signs of maturity. I actually won’t be too sad when we leave here, because we have done the same set here in Stockdale Harbor so many times now that we are all getting bored. Jamel and I estimate that we’ve set here about 200 times so far this year. That’s about as many, if not more than, the number of sets that we did all of last year. We probably have at least another 400 sets ahead of us before the season is out, so by the end of the season we should be really good at what we do. Either that or we will be so sick of it that we just don’t care anymore. Pink season will be really nice though, with the 12 hour openers and the days off. It gives the crew and equipment a day to recuperate, whereas here in Chalmers there is no such luxury. Every time you go to sleep here you do so knowing that in about 5 or 6 hours you will wake up and start fishing in the cold morning. You have no idea how long you will be fishing or when you will deliver or eat or sleep. It all just kind of happens with no planning ahead. Pink season has a structure to it that is very nice in comparison.

Sunday, June 29th, 2008

Well it seems to have come to an end. We got word today that Valdez is opening on Tuesday, so at most we will fish here tomorrow morning and then run to Valdez in the afternoon or night. I’m so excited that pink season is about to start; fishing here in Stockdale harbor for the past 32 days has made me a bit weary of it, and the really scary part is that we have already done a season’s worth of sets. We estimate that we have done somewhere between 200-250 sets already, which is more than I ever did last summer, and we still have the whole pink season ahead of us. That plus fishing every day has worn on all of us. I’m fairly sure that in the past month I haven’t slept more than 5-6 hours a night. So basically I have been tired for a month.

The last week has actually been really good fishing here in Chalmers. Yesterday we managed to get 12000 pounds, while we were getting around 4000 before that. With that delivery the boat’s gross exceeded 50000 dollars, which means that I’ve made $5000 already. Not bad, considering that the lucrative part of the season is just about to begin.

The Valdez run might be a bit bigger than expected this year. It is still anticipated to be well below last year’s but they are opening it a few days earlier than expected; the first opener is scheduled for the 1st of July, and we didn’t think that we would be fishing there until the 4th or later. It doesn’t seem like a huge difference, but it’s only opening 3 or 4 days later than it did on the big year last summer. The price has been posted as 27 cents per pound, which isn’t as high as we had been hearing but is still a good step up from last year. The only problem is that the price increase barely keeps up with fuel prices rising and inflation, if really it does at all.

So now we have to decide whether or not we are going to fish tomorrow or not. We could fish in the morning and early afternoon, then run to Valdez during the night and fish the opener, or we could simply leave for Valdez tomorrow and mend net after we get there, which is something that we really need to do because pinks can fit through a lot smaller holes than chums can. We shall see, but if I had to guess I’d think that we will mend our gear and run to Valdez, because if we fish some more then we have to deliver again. We shall see.

Monday, June 30th, 2008

Well, Chalmers is done. We fished this morning from 8:00 until about 2:30 in the afternoon and called it quits. The morning was really good actually; we got some pretty big sets because of the buildup overnight and the lack of boats in the area. It is amazing the difference that having little or no competition makes. It means that no one is fishing ahead of you and cutting you off and that you don’t have to sit in lines all day for a set.

In the afternoon the fish dropped off, however, so we decided to deliver, get fueled up and get a move on for Valdez. I can’t say that I’m very sad to see Chalmers disappear, although we did make a nice chunk of money while we were here. Our total poundage ended up at 106000 for our 35 days here, which at fifty-five cents a pound means that I made just under six grand; pretty nice pay for the beginning of the summer.

We might actually be coming back to Chalmers during Valdez closures and fishing if we feel up to it and if the money would be worth it. So while we are leaving for now, we could be back in a short amount of time. Either way, our extended stay here is over and I am saying goodbye to Stockdale harbor and chum salmon. Time for pinks!

Chalmers update

2008-06-21T12:16:00.000-08:00

Monday, June 2, 2008

Well it’s our 6th day here is Chalmers, and man it has been an ordeal. All day every day there is something breaking or going wrong left and right. The first day, on the first set the skiff caught on fire. That wasn’t the end of it though; after 4 or 5 sets Jamel and I switched places on the deck and in the skiff, and that’s where it all really started to go wrong. In our haste to switch places, we forgot to disconnect the block line from the net and when I set out in the skiff, the block line got tight on the block and I accidentally towed the boat back into the net. Andrew had put the boat in neutral by this point, but it was too late; web was caught in the prop and we were pretty screwed. After deliberating over it for a while we decided to beach the boat nearby and then at low tide simply wade down and work the web off. The problem is that while we were maneuvering the boat on the beach, Jamel got web caught in the skiff’s jet intake. Now we were really in a tough spot, so we waited parked everything, went to bed and waited for low tide to evaluate the situation. At about 3 am we woke up to try and fix our mess. The water was pretty cold, but not as bad as expected; maybe somewhere around 45 degrees. It was still too high for boots so I was out there in my flip flops trying to unhook the net from our boat. Eventually we got the web off of the prop without tearing it too much, but the skiff was a different story. It wasn’t really propped up on anything so we couldn’t reach too far under it, and in the end we had to cut out all of the pinched web. As disappointed as I was to have to cut the net, I was still pretty excited to get out of that water. God it was cold. After all this was done we went back onboard the Jonathan S which was now tilted at about a 45 degree angle because of the beach. It was interesting to walk on the walls to get back to my bunk; fortunately I had the bunk that had me leaning against the wall. Anyways that was our first day, but that wouldn’t be the end of our problems. It really didn’t cause us too much trouble because we got Jonathan to mend the hole in the morning and we were good to fish again.

The next few days we basically just had a lot of net trouble and some early season kinks to work out. It wasn’t fishing properly and we ended up dumping a lot of fish over the corks every time we tried to pull up a bag of them. Part of it is the new net, and another reason for it is the fact that we don’t have Jonathan in the skiff anymore, which means that all of the tows aren’t perfect. It was frustrating.

Today was a real bomb though. During our first set the skiff overheated and we had to pick the net up over the stern, which means no fish. Throughout the day we were refilling the coolant tank with water to serve as a temporary fix until we can fix the leak in the coolant system. It seems that when Jonathan was plumping the keel cooler he used plastic parts to connect hoses, and those pipes got deformed and started to leak after being exposed to so much heat. After that we had two really good sets with nothing going wrong, and then a big cloud of freon gas blew out if the boat. The pressure had gotten too high and with the numerous other things that we had going on, Andrew forgot to check his gauges. So we had freon all inside the boat and in the engine room, which thankfully got shut off in time to prevent any serious damage. It meant that we couldn’t refrigerate the fish hold water anymore, which is a pretty big problem. After we got the cabin ventilated enough, Andrew, Jamel and I went in and changed the oil in the main engine twice to prevent further harm to it, and after we all calmed down went to deliver the fish that we had onboard to the tender and had dinner. We actually think that we can still operate the refrigeration without any problems and continue to fish. Hopefully we can get some freon sent out on the tender soon, but luckily it turned out to not be too much trouble. It could have totally fried the newly rebuilt engine and pretty much killed our season, leaving Jamel and I jobless. Thankfully it didn’t get that far and we will live to see another day of fishing.

I really can’t complain about the fishing though. So far the fish have been coming in very strong for this early in the season, and in the 6 days that we’ve been here I’ve already made about $500, which is great considering the chum run hasn’t really started yet. Even with all of the screwups we have still managed to out-fish Jonathan up to this point, and I don’t plan on letting him jump ahead at all this season. I’m sure that the competition between our boats (the Jonathan S and the Cat-Bil-Lu) will make all of us wealthy people by the end of the season.

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

God I am getting sick of this weather that we have been having in Chalmers. For the past three days it has been blowing 30 knots, raining, and about 40-45 degrees. All of that combines to make it very cold outside and no fun at all to fish in. The silver lining is that we have done pretty well over the past few days, excluding today because all of a sudden the fish seem to have dried up. Everyone who was fishing around our spot today quit after a little bit, including us.

Instead of work we watched a couple movies and just relaxed all day, although I’m sure that it will not last for long. It is nice to get a day off to kind of recharge and refresh yourself when fishing everyday with no closures. Once pink season starts it will seem incredibly easy by comparison, with the openers being 12-14 hours with the waters being closed for at least a full day after that.

Friday, June 6th, 2008

God I hate that kid Jesse. He is the deckhand on Jonathan’s boat, and he really screwed us over bad. Yesterday, sometime around midday, Andrew decided to be nice and bring Jesse aboard to try and train him somewhat, because he has been struggling on Jonathan’s boat. So Jesse and I switched and I stacked corks for Jonathan one set (a lightning fast pickup I must say) and then watched as the Jonathan S took their turn. The tow was fine, but as they closed there was a confusion with the towline exchange between the crew because Jesse didn’t hand Jamel the line he needed as he gave Jesse the bunt end of the net. In his panic, Jesse dropped the towline that he got from Jamel and it fell overboard, straight into the prop. So there was the Jonathan S, with something stuck in the prop yet again. After evaluating the situation Andrew, Jamel and I decided that the only choice was to spend another night on the beach and to get the line out once low tide came around. So we positioned the boat on the beach, waited a few hours for the water to recede, wound the rope off without having to cut it, and got off around midnight. All in all, the beach part wasn’t bad. What really hurt was the fact that the fishing got really good about as soon as we got on the beach, and we could do nothing but watch. Jesse ended up costing the boat probably somewhere around $2000, in which case means that I personally lost $200. Jamel and I spent all night discussing what should do to him, but nothing we came up with seemed like it would be what he deserved; I’m sure we can think of something though.

On the plus side, the sun came out today for the first time in almost a week. The rain lasted for a good 6 straight days before the streak ended, and God are we glad to have a reprieve, however short it might end up being.

On a comical note, Jamel was remarked today and about how something smelled funny. It turned out that the odd smell was my clean shirt and deodorant. You know you have a good job when the smell of something clean is out of the ordinary.

Monday, June 9th, 2008

Christ yesterday was rough. We started at 4 am and by about noon the wind had picked up and the waves were about 3-5 feet where we were fishing. It was pretty hardcore with everything swinging around (including me) and the skiff bobbing up and down, and yet was still fun even though I was afraid that something was going to break the entire time. I did almost get hit a by the rings few times and Andrew almost dropped the leads on me, but thankfully I was able to avoid it all. Eventually we decided that the fish had gone away enough that it wasn’t worth trying to catch them and break something, so we sped off to deliver our fish. Our delivery put us over 21000 pounds for Chalmers, which at 55 cents a pound finally pays off my plane ticket up here and my ticket back. So from here out is pretty much all profit; if I had to I could cut ties right now and not lose any money.

I turned on my cell phone yesterday and by some sort of weird occurrence I had service and was able to call out, which I couldn’t even do in Cordova. I got to call Megan for a few minutes and find out what her plan was, and to learn that an apartment finally opened up at the place we’ve been looking at this spring, so I should have a place to live this fall when I make it out to Oregon. I’m pretty excited about that, because I was kind of worried about finding a place to stay if this apartment didn’t pan out. It should be a nice enough place to live; it’s right on the southern border of the OSU campus and which will allow me to walk to everything I have to do on or around campus, which will be really nice considering the way that the price of gas is going up. I’m really excited about it.

Today wasn’t bad because we kept up our poundage average without having to do a lot of sets. I think we started at 8 when it opened (the waters are closed here from 8 pm Sunday to Monday at 8 am) and did about 5 sets total. What sucks is that there are a lot of boats starting to show up and each set has about 6 boats on it all day now. So I think to kind of counteract this we are going to try and start fishing all night rather than all day, when there is little or no competition and we can just do set after set without a big wait in between. Hopefully it’ll allow us to catch more fish while also working more hours. It’s what Jonathan has been doing the past few days and so far it’s worked for him, so it should work for us to.

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

Today was…unbelievable. We started around 10 am after fishing until around 3 am last night and got into the long line on our Stockdale harbor set. After several primary and second-out sets we decided that we’d do just one more and then go deliver. Unfortunately, during the one last set the refrigeration once again blew freon into the engine room. The difference between this time and the first time is that this time we had our net in the water and no way to haul it in without turning the engine on. So we sat there for a few minutes until another boat, the Tor, came and offered us assistance by pulling our net over their block and back onto our deck. It’s was such an awesome thing of them to do for us, people who they don’t know at all and aren’t even fishing for the same cannery. Some people are just nice like that I suppose. Anyways, once we got all of that done, we motored into the nearby bay quickly, shut the engine off and changed the oil. Then after the oil change we go to start the engine again so we can deliver the fish we had onboard…and the starter doesn’t engage. There we are with the anchor down, fish onboard, a boom that keeps walking to one side and no way to start the main diesel. Jamel and I ended up bringing in the anchor by hand, which was a chore to say the least. After that Jamel towed us into cell phone range with the skiff and after calls were made to arrange for a new starter he towed us over to the tender. We straightened out the boom by hand (another chore) and eventually delivered, which was interesting because we had no hydraulics at all and had to rely on the tender to manipulate the pump for us, which is never a great thing. I swear that these tender guys are so dumb that they make almost all of the bad crews from last year look good.

So now we are unable to fish for at least a couple days, until we get a new starter motor. At least we will have time to get the boat squared away on some of the little things that need to get done, but I really wish that we could be fishing instead. The fish are really starting to come in now, and we can’t catch them! At least Jonathan had to run to town for fixes of his own, so he can’t get ahead of us while we’re out of the game.

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

Bored. I really wish the starter would come soon. There’s a chance that it might come tomorrow, but if not then the next day. Meanwhile, we’re losing thousands of dollars as we sit idly and do nothing while the fish are swimming.

Sunday, June 15th, 2008

Today was a good day. We got up later than usual (around 5:30), put the net in the water and got a great set to start the day. From then on we fished straight until it closed at 8 pm, with a few boats joining in every now and then. After it was all said and done, we ended up delivering around 8200 pounds today, giving me something like a $450 dollar day. That is absolutely sick for Chalmers; I didn’t expect to get that much on a single day here. One can only hope that it keeps up for a while, especially considering that today was probably the halfway mark for our stay in Chalmers this summer. Andrew predicts that Valdez won’t open until about the 4th of July, so we should have plenty of time to try and have a bigger day than today.

It is kind of scary that we are only at the halfway point for Chalmers though. Pinks are going to seem so easy by comparison, with the 12 hour openers and day-on day-off fishing. When you have a whole day to recover it’s not that hard to go super hardcore for 12 hours of fishing, but here when you expect 5-6 hours of sleep after going hardcore it can be harder to get into the right mindset sometimes. Speaking of pinks, we are starting to get a lot of them in our sets here. By a lot I mean around 10 per set, but for the middle of June that is fairly unheard of. Andrew thinks that it might be a sign of another big wild fish run, and I have to agree that it certainly points in that direction. We’re all pretty excited about that development, and we’ll have to watch over the next few weeks here how the situation develops

The other night we did something interesting and fished throughout it. We started around noon and sat in a line of about 6 boats until 7, and then everybody else quit and we cranked out sets until 3 am. It was creepy because the sky was actually getting brighter as we quit. There were points where seeing the skiff on the beach was difficult, but it never got to the point where we couldn’t see what was going on. This was all like 9 days before the longest day of the year, too! I can’t really remember what it was like when I was up here last year for the solstice, so I’m kind of excited to see how light it is at 1 am, which seems to be the darkest point of the day.

Andrew and I have been experimenting a lot amount on deck in terms of stacking the net. I think we have finally found an easy way to stack it without getting a lot of leadline flips. It seems that all of the new web that was hung into the net over the winter, it doesn’t stack quite the same as it used to, but I think that Andrew and I have solved that now. Our first experiment had me under the net as we brought the lead in, which I decided wouldn’t do at all once we start lots of jellies. So therefore I suggested our current method and it seems to work perfectly fine. Only time will tell where we end up.

Monday, June 16th, 2008

Well today sure had a good start. Jamel and I got up around 7, although Andrew had been up since 4, and had some breakfast before fishing opened. We were first on the set, which after a closure usually means a buildup of fish, even if the closure is only 12 hours long. So we were first in line for the buildup set and it was a great one; our best so far this year with 256 fish in it. I know that because I pitched every one of them from the deck into the fish hold. After that we kept getting 100+ fish sets until our final one, which ended up being about 15 fish. It ended up being a pretty easy day with only 6 sets.

We’re starting to get really organized and quick about picking up these days. The net is running in and out really smoothly every time, with a small exception at the end where we run out of purse line sometimes; that’s a fairly easy fix though, once we get some time to do it.

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

Well today we got up around 4:30 am, did one set, and quit. We were a bit late getting started and as a consequence we missed the morning shot of fish. Then later on we were lazy and didn’t even go out for the afternoon. So we spent the day eating and sleeping with a movie thrown in. It was a nice break, but not a great way to make money.

Saturday, June 21st, 2008

Well crap. Maybe I’m just bad luck or something, but for the second year in a row we sunk the skiff. There are no pictures this time, but trust me it looked exactly the same as last year, with the skiff held up by our picking boom with the console and engine well underwater. Fortunately this time the engine wasn’t underwater for nearly as long, because it went down right next to a point where several limit sized boats were fishing, and one of them, the St. Zita, came and just picked it straight up out of the water. It made a really good case for getting a big boat.

So anyways we were on our way back to town anyways, because on our last set we actually broke the tiller on the skiff. That’s actually why it sunk, because when we were checking out the damage we removed an inspection hatch to look into the jet. However, in our frustration we forgot to put it back on, so once we started towing it back to town water started flowing through the hatch and it went down. The damage isn’t really too bad though; a lot better than last year. Water didn’t get too far into the engine, so besides the fried wiring it should work fine. We should be ready to go tonight and leaving again tomorrow morning, which is fine with me because I don’t get paid to be in town and every day we miss out there is another 200 or 300 bucks that I’m not getting. I’ve already made about $3000 so far, so this season is getting off to a pretty decent start.

We shouldn’t be out for too long this time though, because Valdez should be starting sometime around the 4th of July, if not a little earlier.

-Jack

Off to Chalmers

2008-05-26T21:10:00.002-08:00

Well tomorrow is the day. We are planning on leaving sometime in the afternoon and heading down to Chalmers for about a month. Today was actually the first day that it was open to fish there, but unfortunately we got stuck doing boat projects and are now late getting out fishing, although we are still way ahead of a lot of boats. Most of the boats in the fleet won't even start fishing until Valdez opens around the last few days of June. Hopefully by then we will already have made about $50000 scratching for chums in Chalmers and can taunt them to no end.

So anyways, this should be goodbye for a month and if it isn't that means we broke something, which we are going to try and avoid this year. I hope that when we return from Chalmers we are significantly richer and way ahead of Jonathan in fish totals.

-Jack

And again

2008-05-18T21:20:00.003-08:00

Well here I am again, spending the summer in Alaska. I got into town on Thursday the 15th of May, exactly a year after I got here the first time. I have to say that it is pretty weird to be back, because in some ways it almost feels like I never left. The town is still the same and everyone around here is still the same.

The real difference between this year and last year is going to be the fish. The salmon here tend to operate on a year-on, year-off cycle. Odd numbered years are the big ones lately, but since 2008 happens to be an even number, the fish are supposed to be much fewer this summer. However, there is great news because right now the price of pink salmon is projected to be somewhere around 30-35 cents per pound, a huge increase from the 19 cents per pound we were getting last season. It seems that a lot of the other supplies of pink salmon are getting hit drastically by disease or overfishing, so the Alaska supply is looking pretty good and becoming more in demand. This works great for us, because it means that there will be some decent money to be made this summer. Plus the price of chum (or dog) salmon that we will be fishing for a month before pinks is supposed to be at least 50 cents a pound, if not more than that. I've heard rumors up to 96 cents per pound, but that's a little hard to believe. What it means is that we will be heading out of town on the 25th to get to Chalmers and start fishing the day that it opens, because if we can somehow manage to average 4000 pounds a day, over 30 days that will end up being about 60000 dollars, which is a great way to start off a season, especially a down year.

Less fish might also mean that we could get fewer openers than a year ago, because the department that controls the fishing is worried about overfishing on a thin year. So instead of fishing every other day, we might end up fishing every once every three days or something like that. It's too early to really know what is going to happen, but this is what some people think might happen, and a lot of times those people are right.

Well I'm glad to be back and I'm excited about fishing starting soon. I really can't wait because the pre-season work is dreadful. It's actually making me sore and really tired at night, because I think it involves more physical work than fishing does sometimes. Only a week left! Thank God.

-Jack

The end

2007-09-27T13:55:00.000-08:00

Well, I figure that it is time to give this blog a formal ending. The trip is over, so the log must end too.

I will be going back at some point. I don't know about this summer but maybe the summer of 2009. We'll see what kind of schedule school will dictate.

So to everyone who read this over the past 4 months or so, thank you for paying attention, and I hope you were at least mildly entertained.

-Jack

Almost time

2007-09-13T12:32:00.000-08:00

Less then 8 hours left now until liftoff. Everything other than my computer is packed and ready to be hauled off to the Cordova airport. I'm really hoping I don't have to recheck my bags in Anchorage, because I am only scheduled to have an hour layover. Oh well, we'll see soon enough I suppose.

It sounds like Ensley will be picking me up from the airport in Jacksonville and take me back to Gainesville to begin spending all of my newfound money. The trip will be sponsored by the parents, so the plan is to eat at a restaurant for every possible meal. What would be really great is if Ensley could manage to get her hands on an extra ticket for the Gators football game on Saturday so that we could go.

Sunday night she will return me to Jacksonville where the boat should be docked at the Navy Marina, waiting for my return. It will be nice to be home.

-Jack

I'm done

2007-09-11T11:40:00.000-08:00

Yep, I'm done working for the summer. The last few days have been filled with scrubbing anything that needed it on the Jonathan S.

Megan came over from Cordova on the 7th and stayed with us. Andrew saw an opportunity to get some extra work done and put her on the payroll. So she and I got to take a romantic trip into the oily dirty engine bay to scrub it, and another voyage to clean out the skiff. Good times.

So Monday we caught the ferry back to Cordova and since then we've been tying up all the loose ends before we leave on tomorrow.

Yesterday I went to the bank with Carmen and she transferred something like $21800 into my bank account. It made me happy. Right now I'm about to go to the tax office here in town and get all of that business taken care of, and then I think all my tasks in Cordova will be done.

Less then 2 days now until I am flying out.

-Jack

Valdez again

2007-09-03T15:39:00.000-08:00

Well it's all over. The whole season is done with.

We got done fishing silvers after only 1 day. The fish were already becoming flushed and old, so we decided to just call it quits and come into the harbor. Luke left the next morning to head back home, leaving me and Andrew to scrub, scrub, and scrub some more. That's seriously all we've been doing the past 2 days. I got to delve into the fish hold yesterday and scrub lovely fish residue out. My journey into the pits significantly improved when I came upon a 10 day old fish, rotting and brown in a tiny nook. The smell was less then fantastic, to say the least.

That was not the last rotting fish for me though, oh no. Today was went through the net, washing it out with a couple hoses. Along the way there were some truly excellent examples of dead rotting fish. Just so everyone knows, these carcasses are the remains of the Valdez run that ended in the middle of July, so they had some time to sit on the bottom and become really ripe. I could tell when we needed to stop and pick a fish out just by smell alone.

So tomorrow we will get the boat hauled out and get to work painting the bottom and doing some fiberglass repair. That's probably about all we will get done before I leave for Cordova on the 10th. I don't really know what all we need to do though, but I'm not sure Andrew does either. We'll see.

Ok well my battery is dying, so it's time for me to head back to the boat and take a stab at making hamburbers. I am making no promises.

-Jack

Back and mending

2007-08-30T11:19:00.000-08:00

Well here we are back in town. We actually have been back for a few days at this point, because we decided to leave the Southwestern district and come back home.

The length of our trip was a bit absurd. We ran 12 hours over there on Friday, fished Saturday and then ran another 12 hours back to town on Sunday. I suppose it was still worth it because we did make some money, but that's just about the most inefficient fishing you can do.

Man the fish down there were so nasty. They are all very dark now with big humps on their heads, and are basically floppy sacks of eggs at this point. As they get closer to spawning, a salmon's body will consume it's internal organs to sustain itself rather feeding. That's why we try to catch them before they get dark, because as they age their bodies lose a lot of muscle. In fact, we were catching salmon in Southwest for their eggs instead of their meat.

The past few days seen us over on the net mending dock working on restoring our poor seine. We really haven't worked on it very much at all this summer, and you can tell. It is so beat up and pitiful-looking that it makes me sad.

As we are working on our net it seems like everyone else is putting theirs away. Not many boats fish for silvers, because at this point of the season everyone is so tired that they just want to quit. I find it amazing how fast some of these boats got put away for the winter.

Basically that has been it. We're just recuperating, waiting for silvers to start on the 4th. We will head over to Valdez on either Sunday or Monday, and then probably fish for 3-4 days, or until the fish disappear. Since Jonathan is leaving for college on the 2nd, I will be promoted to skiffman for silvers. Having responsibilities is a frightening prospect; I'll actually have to pay attention now instead of mindlessly stacking corks.

-Jack

Pics

2007-08-23T22:18:00.000-08:00

Well here are the pictures that were promised last night.

Jonathan and I up on a mountain in Unakwik.

The view from that same mountain.

Megan and I.

A sunset in Unakwik

So anyways I jumped the gun a bit on the season being over, because tomorrow (Friday) around noon we are headed out for the southwestern district for a few more days. I am actually glad we are going, because I'd rather be out making money than in town being bored. Most of the people I've gotten to know are out there, so it'll be fun.

And then there were none

2007-08-23T01:27:00.000-08:00

Well we are back from Unakwik. Man, that place is gorgeous. Jonathan, Megan and I hiked up one of the surrounding mountains during one closure and got some great pictures that I will put on here soon. The sets in Unakwik reminded me of Valdez a bit, because it was so deep even right next to shore. We would be right next to the rocky wall coming out of the water, staying maybe 25 feet from the shore, and it would be 100 feet deep. I still think that is amazing.

It was a really short stay this year, with us in that area for only 10 days before the fish dried up. There were just too many boats fishing up there to keep it going any longer.

We ran back to Gravina on the 20th and have been fishing here for the past few days. This wild fish run should have been done about 3 weeks ago, but it just keeps coming and coming. It is definitely dwindling though, for it is nothing like it was before we left for Unakwik. I think these past few days will end up being our last days of fishing before silvers in Valdez. That gives us about a week and a half to get the boat ready and fix various things before we have to fish again.

Yep, the pink salmon season is now over. It's strange to think that it is really over and that the summer is coming to end. Of course, it comes just as I am really starting to get really good at stacking corks and the rest of the deck work.

Usually the season runs on until around the end of the month, but this year the fish have run dry a bit earlier than usual. This is because there are more boats out on the sound fishing, and that the hatcheries have taken a much larger amount of fish for their cost-recovery. So it's not that there are less fish than projected, it's just that they have all been caught. Even with the year ending a week or so early, we have all made out like bandits this summer. 2005 was a record year, with the Smallwoods grossing around $220000. This year we are at something like $280000 before silvers, so it could get up to $290000 or even $300000 if there is a good silver run. I'm not too concerned about it though, because I have already made way more than I expected too, and I have more than enough to buy a car, computer and phone with plenty left over. Right now I think my crew share stands at a bit over $22000, but that will fluctuate as I add money from silvers and then take some off for taxes. Who knows what it will actually end up as, but whatever the final number is it will be big.

So we are back at the dock in Cordova now. Carmen was feeling ill for the past week or two, so a couple days ago she just hoped on a friends' boat and has been staying at a hotel here in town for a couple nights. So for the past few days it has just been us boys aboard to fend for ourselves. She claims to be feeling better already though, so it won't be too long until she joins us again. The boat certainly feels bigger and quieter in her absence though.

For the past couple weeks I've been starting to put together a movie comprised of videos and pictures I've taken during the summer. Hopefully I'll actually get it done at some point after the summer is over.

Tomorrow or the next day I will upload some pictures because it has been far too long since I have.

Anyways, that is the rundown of what's been going on. I decided to leave out the boring details this time. I'm not sure what we will be doing from now until silvers start on the 4th, but I'm sure we will stay busy. The net has so many holes that it will take us a few days just to get that back the way we want it.

-Jack

We're actually going

2007-08-10T13:16:00.000-08:00

...And it's for real this time. We got the order from the boss himself that we are to leave Gravina and head out to Unakwik. We'll be out there for about 3 weeks, and from there we'll head to Valdez and fish for silvers. It's crazy how fast the season is progressing. Andrew and I were talking yesterday and he mentioned that we might only have 10 or so openers left in the pink season.

Well time to go.

-Jack

One last time

2007-08-10T10:32:00.000-08:00

Aug 8th:

We ended up staying in town way longer than we expected, but it was for a good cause. Jonathan did some much-needed reconstruction on the boat end of the seine, so now hopefully fish won’t be able to run out of our net so easily.

Not much else went on. I went hiking with my girlfriend Megan and her friend Audrey up to the reservoir just for a quick bit before work began. I think she is planning on dragging me up a nearby mountain before the end of the year, which will be interesting.

-Jack

Aug 9th:

The fish just don’t want to end. I know by saying that, I have jinxed us and now they will run away never to be seen again.

But anyways the fishing is still extraordinary around here. We did 5 sets to get our limit for the day, and then had to run the last of our fish back to the cannery here in town. It kind of sucks to have to run for 3 hours and then deliver, but it means we get to come back to town every day, which is nice.

I did another set in the skiff yesterday, for our last one of the day. It would be nice to stick around Gravina for a little longer just so that I can get some more practice on these really easy sets before thing like snags and currents start becoming an issue. Oh well, I’ll have to deal with them eventually anyways.

Total poundage for the day: 50000

-Jack

...And we're still around

2007-08-08T11:35:00.000-08:00

Aug 2nd:

It was typical town day. Running to an fro getting whatever supplies might be needed and jumping out in the afternoon. We actually got done pretty late and didn’t leave the harbor until about 6, which is much later then we usually leave.

-Jack

Aug 3rd:

Today was interesting, to be sure. We used our entire quota of stupid for the whole day in one set, although we didn’t stop there.

Our first set was incredible. Maybe a 15-18 thousand pound set to start off the day, which is just phenomenal for wild fish. Then came the second set, which was the unfortunate one. The whole time we were holding open, you could tell it was going to be a huge set. Fish were jumping everywhere, with more than one in the air several times. But as we were closing the net and about to pick it up, disaster struck. We got rocked down, which occurs when the net catches on the bottom and snags itself. It can usually be avoided or fixed by the skiff man being careful, but on this set Jonathan had towed too far forward and the snag was particularly bad. I knew what we would have to do at once, and I dreaded it. We had to pick the net up over the stern, serving to just get it back aboard and dump the set. This was probably going to be around a 20000 pound set, too. Needless to say, I was bitter for the rest of the day about it.

It still turned out to be a great day. We fell just short of the limit because at the end of the day we got caught in some long lineups, and didn’t get many sets in. Plus we got to the point where we could not physically fit any more fish into the boat, and our day was finished.

Total poundage for the day: 51000

-Jack

Aug 4th:

Ah, finally a lazy day. Since we delivered late last night, and because we stocked up on everything last time we were in town we decided against going back to town this closure. While we don’t get to see any of our friends when we do this, it is nice to have a day every now and then to just do nothing but sleep and watch movies. Since I only get about 4-5 hours of sleep in town and 5-6 hours the night before we fish, being able to get 9-10 hours is welcome. Hopefully when we are in the middle of nowhere our friends will be around us, and we can have both at once.

-Jack

Aug 5th:

Today was an average Gravina day, which means tons of fish were caught and money was made. I swear, I’m getting so spoiled this season with this huge mass of fish that is coming in. We were again on our limit of 55000 pounds which we got after 10 sets I think. The boat’s total gross rises pretty quickly when you put together these strings of 10000 dollar days. It’s getting to be absurd.

Afterwards we had to run the last of our fish to the cannery in town due to no tender service in the afternoon, which kind of sucked but at least we got to be back in town again.

During our delivery at the cannery dock, Jonathan decided that there was too much water in the fish hold and that we should take the return hose out for a pump or two (the return hose gives us back the water that the pump sucks out, because the fish need water to be pumped quickly). As he unties it from the pump hose, all of a sudden things go to hell and the hose goes crazy. It turns out this things is like a freaking fire hose. Jonathan puts himself between the open door cabin and the hose and wrestles it down to the deck. I told him that he looked like the crocodile hunter taking down a huge croc. Crikey!

Total poundage for the day: 55000

-Jack

Aug 6th:

Yet another town day that I think is our last. We’ve had a lot of ‘last days in town’, but we seem to keep coming back. I thought we would already be in the Northwest district by now, but we may as well stick around here if the fish are here. Plus, since there are only about 6 or 7 boats fishing in our area, you don’t get cut off by people fishing above or below you because everyone is so spread out. It’s great, because there are no lineups and no competition for the fish.

-Jack

Aug 7th:

Wow today was incredible fishing. It’s almost as if the run is still building, not dying off. We had a higher limit at 62000 pounds, which we were able to get after only 6 sets. It’s amazing, the amount of fish around here. I wonder how I will react to having a normal job at some point, with good pay being $9 an hour.

What was really fun about to was that I got to alf our sets in the skiff while Jonathan stacked corks. It was a win-win, because I got to do the skiff and Jonathan was able to get a workout. We were both happy. So the skiff wasn’t too difficult, although the set we were doing was extremely easy; a gravel beach with no snags on the bottom. It is a perfect set to start on. Towing the boat around while we pick the net up is challenging but fun. That’s definitely where you have to have the finesse.

So hopefully now on long days Jonathan and I could switch off stacking and skiffing as needed to give each other a break. He is most definitely still the skiffman though, at least for the next 3 weeks or so until he leaves for school.

Total poundage for the day: 62000

-Jack

Back once more

2007-08-02T09:25:00.000-08:00

July 30th:

Man today was incredible fishing. By 11 we had filled the hold for the first time after 5 sets. We delivered and went back to work for another 9 sets and managed to fill the boat up to the brim on our last possible set of the day. It was our best day of the year so far, with me clearing over $800 and the boat getting just over $10000. Sure, it took 14 sets but that is an absurd amount of money for 14 hours of work. That comes out to $59 an hour. Something tells me I wouldn’t be doing that well if I was working at Burger King.

We didn’t get done delivering until 2 in the morning. Geez, the lines at the tenders were hellishly long. At least we didn’t have t get up and fish though.

It was funny, for a few sets Jonathan ran the big boat and Andrew did the skiff. It gave him an immense amount of joy to look out and see his dad in the skiff while Jonathan stayed in the cozy top house. I suppose that soon enough it will be me who is banished to the skiff while the Smallwood clan handles the deck work.

Total poundage for the day: 55000

Total poundage sold: 666000

-Jack

July 31st:

Well today was an actually day off. We spent the night in the little bay where we delivered yesterday’s fish, and at about 10 ran back to our set so that we could be the first boat up the next day. The day mostly consisted of movies and TV shows on the laptop, and was nice for recuperating from the 14 sets we did yesterday.

-Jack

Aug 1st:

Wow today was incredible. Another exceptional day of fishing, and we only did like 11 sets. We actually got done early, because sometime right after noon there was an announcement for our fleet that we all had a limit of 55000 pounds for the day. By 6 pm we had our fish and took off for the tender. By 10 we were back in town to socialize. A very good day.

The money I've been making lately is absurd, but I'm not complaining because it is an absurdly large amount. I definitely picked a year to come up here. This season should end up setting a lot of records in terms of the amount of fish.

So I think that this trip to town may be our last for quite some time. Soon we should be heading out to the middle of nowhere to fish near a salmon hatchery for about a month. After that we will be back in Valdez for a few days to fish silvers, and then I'll be done. I can't believe the season has gotten this far already. I only have like 6 weeks until I am sitting back at home aboard the boat.

But anyways, like last time, no news is probably good news once we make it out there. I'm not sure if we are going to run out there today and fish tomorrow or stick in Gravina tomorrow and then run out afterwards.

Total poundage for the day: 55000

-Jack

It could be awhile

2007-07-29T14:22:00.000-08:00

Well the past few days I have been lazy on recording what has been going on around here, but there really isn't much to report. We got our chores done and the boat put back together during our long closure, and fished yesterday. The fishing is still pretty good around here and we got 37000 pounds, which brings our total poundage sold to 611000 pounds. We actually have caught over a million pounds for the year so far, but a lot of that was during the co-op and we didn't get paid for everything we caught. Oh well, we've still made a lot of money.

I drove us almost all the way back into town last night because the autopilot is on the fritz again. Driving can be tiring when you have to stand up the whole time. We are actually about to head out again to be ready for tomorrow's opener, and I think we will be back tomorrow night, because we need another day in town to fix things seeing as how it is Sunday today and everything is closed. The next closure might be our last time in Cordova for awhile though, because I'm pretty sure afterwards we will be heading off to fish in the middle of nowhere for about a month. We may find ourselves in another co-op, although hopefully it would be more organized than the one in Valdez. I also assume that I will being my training in the skiff soon, to take over when Jonathan leaves for college.

So once that month is done the pink salmon season will be over and the only fishing left will be a few days in Valdez to fish for silver salmon. I can't believe that it is almost August already.

So this could be the last post for quite a while, and it should probably be assumed that no news is good news, although if I have the opportunity to update I will.

-Jack

Scrub scrub scrub

2007-07-25T20:40:00.000-08:00

So today was the first opener that we have skipped so far. We decided that it would probably be better in the long run to stay in town and get things fixed rather than fish, seeing as how this is considered the lull of the season and if we have to miss out on fishing, now is the time. The main issue is that since Chalmers we have to go into the engine bay and use a crowbar to engage or disengage the hydraulic system.

So while Andrew worked on the main engine and steering and Jonathan worked on the skiff, I gave the boat exterior an incredibly thorough cleaning. It is beautiful, as it should be after I work on it for over 3 hours.

Other than that it was been a pretty laid back day. One thing I am excited about it the fact that I was able to download a copy of the new Harry Potter book from the internet. I figure my free time over the next couple days will be dedicated to reading that.

-Jack

Drunk skippers cause nothing but problems

2007-07-24T13:23:00.000-08:00

July 21st:

Hmm today was mostly just a busy blur; laundry, groceries, etc. We headed back out of the harbor around 4:30 so we could fuel up and that was it.

July 22nd:

Well this morning was interesting. I guess it was really late last night, but whatever. So we were anchored on our set and Jonathan and I were mending the net quickly when all of a sudden Andrew says that there is a boat on the rocks near us and saw a big black cloud of smoke come from the area. So we pulled the anchor and jumped over to the ship, which turned out to be one of our tenders, named the Nordic Viking. It was run up on a huge flat rock and the bow of the boat was nearly in the trees on the small island it hit. The engine room was flooded, and they had lost power onboard. The worst part however, was that the skipper was drunk when the boat crashed. I don’t know what it is with this year, but drunk skippers seem to be an issue. It hasn’t been like this before though.

So eventually we got the crew off the boat and onto another, while Andrew, myself and Peter (the buyer of our fish) tried to get the boat sorted out. We tried to contain the oil leaking into the water temporarily until the Coast Guard could contain it, and then we got off the boat ourselves. It was a crazy night.

The really annoying part though, is that the Coast Guard didn’t contain the spilled diesel, and now that particular fjord is closed because of it. It isn’t a huge spill, but it is enough to contaminate the fish in the area, because as soon as the bag of fish is brought to the surface they will be covered in diesel. So now more boats will be crammed into a smaller area, and we won’t be able to fish our spot.

Anyways, the fishing was routine for the most part, we caught a couple sharks, but that was the extent of the issues for the day. The fish slowed down a bit which was unfortunate, but we still did alright.

Total poundage for the day: 25000

Total poundage sold: 564000

-Jack

July 23rd:

Geez today was nasty. This summer, the weather on the sound has been really nice, with some sunny days but mostly overcast weather, which is good for fishing. As soon as we get in the general vicinity of Cordova though, the rain starts to come down. Of course, Jonathan and I got to be out in the elements mending the net, but we were able to procrastinate our way out of most of the work. We will have to finish it tomorrow though. Our poor net is so beat up at this point. With it snagging on the boat as well as dragging along the bottom when we set and the occasional shark, the poor thing is filled with holes. I claim it’s so holey that it’s the seine Jesus would’ve used. Aren’t I clever?

So after weaseling out of that task, we were free for the night and proceeded to gather up some friends and hit the town.

-Jack

Back home

2007-07-21T10:17:00.000-08:00

July 17th:

We actually had to do a bit of work today. We slapped out 6 sets before it was all over, which is more than we’ve done in a while. It was all fairly meager though, because there aren’t really any fish left in the Valdez arm. The run has progressed enough that pretty much all of the fish have made it up to the hatchery near Valdez, leaving the waters leading up the Valdez pretty dry. I mean, we can still consistently get 3000-4000 pound sets, but that’s nothing compared to what it was.

I think our time here is pretty much over now. I have been saying that for awhile, but I think it’s for real this time. Tomorrow we have another opener here in Valdez, but I bet afterwards we will run over to Gravina, our next fishing grounds.

Yesterday evening our fleet got a little smaller. One of our boats, the Pagan, was at anchor when the skipper, Steve, got a phone call regarding today’s opener. As Steve was talking he noticed another boat, the Kanak, coming towards him. Initially, Steve thought that the Kanak was just coming over to say a quick word before he anchored up for the night. However, as the distance between the boats was shrinking, Steve noticed that the Kanak wasn’t slowing down at all, and coming towards him at full blast, around 7-8 knots. Steve yelled to his crew to get out on deck and brace themselves, and the Kanak rammed dead into the side of the Pagan. Luckily, no one was seriously hurt in the crash, but the Pagan was smashed up pretty badly. We found out today that it is damaged enough to prevent it from fishing anymore this season. The Kanak escaped with minor damage, but the skipper was lead off from the scene in handcuffs after he was determined to be drunk at the helm, and was charged with a DUI. So right now we have no idea when the Kanak might be back in action. It just shows how fast things can change, and how your season can end in the blink of an eye.

Total poundage for us/co-op: 26000/?

Total poundage bought from us: ?

-Jack

July 18th:

Man today was crazy. We started off fishing at the hatchery didn’t do too well the first couple of sets. But then came the third set; holy crap it was a monster. When it was all pumped off, we had caught 141000 pounds of fish in the set. We got lucky with a huge school of fish running straight into our net, but luck still counts. It was a new record for the Jonathan S, beating the previous record of about 118000 lbs.

Unfortunately since we had to hold the set for so long, the tide changed on us and the it wouldn’t have been worth the effort to throw out another set at the hatchery. We headed up the Valdez arm and made one set at the narrows for about 3000-4000 pounds, and then decided to call it a day, find the tender, and head to Gravina.

The run to Gravina was uneventful. I manned the helm for about 2 hours along the way, and we didn’t even hit anything. I’m guessing that I’m the only corkman who gets to drive the boat. In fact, I’m probably one of the only non-skippers to drive a boat. Other might see it as a liability, but Andrew sees it as a chance to take a nap.

Total poundage for us/co-op: 145000

Total poundage bought from us: ?

-Jack

July 19th:

Well, we are certainly back at work now. After 3 weeks of setting 2-3 times a day in Valdez, we did 10 sets today. I think during our time In Valdez I lost some of the shoulder muscle I had built up, because it takes a bit more effort to stack now than it did before. Oh well, at this pace I should regain what I might have lost and add some more in no time.

We have no limit now, at least for the time being. If the fish start pouring in, then we will maybe get one but right now there is no need. On average the sets are 3-5 thousand pounds each, and Andrew says it is very early for this area so it might even pick up some. Valdez spoils people; sets like we are getting now are pretty good, but after the 60 and 80 thousand pound sets we were getting a couple weeks ago, they seem meager. I really can’t complain at all though, because supposedly there are at least twice as many fish here as last year, and the Smallwoods believe that there may even be more fish than 2005, which was a monster year. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Total poundage for the day: 40000

Total poundage sold: 489000

-Jack

July 20th:

Today was both a good and bad day. Good, because we caught a lot of fish; bad because we were very sloppy. In 12 sets we had 8 lead line flips, which is an unfortunate record for the day. A lead line happens when the lead line on the bottom of the net flips over the corks while the net is setting out, causing the corks to sink and making a huge door for the fish to exit our net. There were some that weren’t my fault, but I think most of them were. I was stacking too far back which caused my corks to get too close to the lead and purse lines. Oh well, hopefully I adapted my technique enough throughout the day to prevent it in the future.

So we have tomorrow off, and maybe Sunday too. I wouldn’t mind getting a 2-day break, because fishing 4 days in a row is tiring. We have work to make the money though I suppose.

Tonight we are running back to Cordova for the first time in over a month. It will be nice to get back because it is the closest thing to a home port for me up here, and hopefully we can see all of our friends who stayed behind.

Total poundage for the day: 50000

Total poundage sold: 539000

-Jack

I want a mulligan

2007-07-16T22:28:00.000-08:00

July 14th:

We spent the day in Valdez relaxing. Instead of leaving in the afternoon to anchor on a set, we just spent the night in town. It didn’t really matter, because the next day we were just going right outside the harbor to fish anyways.

-Jack

July 15th:

I think we should get a mulligan for today. It was just a poorly thought out, nonproductive day for us. It was a good day for the co-op, with us hitting our limit again, but so far today was our worst Valdez opener. Only 2 sets, and one of them was a screw up so we didn’t get any fish. We didn’t even get our net into the water until about 10 am or so, because most of the morning was spent running around the Valdez arm is a flutter, which is something we usually avoid. Thankfully other people were able to get some fish and save the day.

Total poundage for us/co-op: 7800/750000

Total poundage bought from us: 428291

-Jack

July 16th:

Today was actually a non-boring day in Valdez. At about 2:30 in the afternoon several of our boat friends and I decided to go hiking up the fairly steep base of a mountain. We didn’t hike all the way up the mountain, but we made it to a ridge over halfway up, and it was the hard part anyways. The trail was so steep that at some points you had to use a rope that ran along it to pull yourself up. It was hard, to say the least. The bad part was that we didn’t think to bring any water with us, so we couldn’t really go any farther than we did. It would have been cool to get all the way up the mountain, if our bodies had allowed it. We were all exhausted, but it was pretty fun.

Tomorrow we go out for what might be the first of the last 2 openers we have here in Valdez. The next one will be on Wednesday.

-Jack

It's running out

2007-07-14T14:02:00.000-08:00

July 9th:

Another typical Valdez day. Boat chores, spend too much money on food, and use the phone/internet. On the plus side we did end up getting the go-ahead to fish tomorrow, so we took off from the dock in the afternoon.

-Jack

July 10th:

Ok, it is becoming extremely difficult not to gloat too much. Once again we were the high boat of the co-op. We did a mere 3 sets and came up with an extremely massive amount of fish. During the 5 openers of the co-op, we have been high boat 4 times now. Considering how this boat is dwarfed by some of the boats around it, that is superb. We are fishing on the second-smallest boat in the fleet and are the most productive and maybe the hardest working, although there are some friends of ours in the fleet who work very hard as well.

Anyways, the fish are rolling in but our limit remained at its previous level. I thought one of the absent cannery ships would be back in action by now, but it must need an extra day or 2. Once it is functioning properly our buyer will be about to handle a much larger capacity of fish, and our daily limits should rise. We will see.

Total poundage for us/co-op: 145000/780000

Total poundage bought from us: 311000

-Jack

July 11th:

I’m not sure I really want to write much about today, because that would be a reminder that it actually occurred. We did 3 sets, but had to drop 2 of them because they were not big enough for the tender go out of its way to come over and pump it out.

The truly unfortunate part of the day was the general lack of fish around. We still managed to get our limit, but the run of fish has significantly dropped off. You can tell how far along the run is by the percentage of females. As the female percentage rises above 30%-40%, it shows that the run is dropping off. A few days ago it went from 35% to 55% overnight; yesterday it rose up to 69%. The evidence is pointing to the Valdez run ending soon, and us moving to a different location. We might end up fishing about 3 hours out of Cordova, so every now and then we would be able to run back into town. All I know right now is that we will be back out fishing in the Valdez arm again tomorrow, and we will see where the fish take us from there.

Total poundage for us/co-op: 10000/760000

Total poundage bought from us: 351000

-Jack

July 12th:

It was another just day in Valdez. We headed out of the harbor in the early afternoon and did some work on the net before we called it a day.

-Jack

July 13th:

We managed to survive Friday the 13th without any big problems. I though after our first set that it was going to be a rough day, but it turned out alright. The first set of the day-which is usually a good one because of the buildup of fish overnight-came up with like 6000 pounds of fish. Sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t when the co-op is trying to reach 700000 for the day. The next set was an improvement, and the third was our best of the day. After that we were told by our great leader to go anchor up and eat lunch, so we obliged.

At maybe 3:30 we pulled the hook and started constantly getting new information which sent us running back and forth across the Valdez arm looking important but not doing anything. The waves had picked up to a 2-3 foot chop when we set again, which made the whole process very bumpy. We did another 2 sets in the waves, dumping one of them and keeping the other that was a meager 5400 pounds. It was all we could do though, because the opener had ended and we couldn’t set again if we had wanted to.

After watching a few waves come over the stern while we were picking the net up, I decided that we should have a TV show following the seine fleet called Slightly Unsafe Catch. It would be way more extreme than Deadliest Catch.

Total poundage for us/co-op: 55000/700000

Total poundage bought from us: 388818

-Jack

Off again

2007-07-09T16:05:00.000-08:00

We should be leaving the Valdez harbor within the hour to get back out on the water. Tomorrow we have an opener and there will be another one on Wednesday, but after that I have no idea. We might end up running back into town or we could find ourselves fishing some more. I'd really rather stay out on the water and get some fishing in; I came up here to fish, not sit in Valdez.

Anyways, time to run.

-Jack

Four in a row

2007-07-08T23:54:00.000-08:00

July 7th:

Well today was meager, at best. We woke up at about 7 in town and got some quick shopping done, then swiftly ran back out to fish. We didn’t get our net wet until late again, this time about 3 pm or so, and it wasn’t even a very good set. It was merely average. For the first time in the co-op so far we were not heroes of the day, with a big clutch set. The group didn’t end up needing a huge one from us though, because the boiler on our cannery ship was acting up and they lowered our limit to 675000 pounds for the day. I wish we could get all of these issues worked out with the cannery ships, because once they are all up and running our buyer will be able to purchase substantially larger amounts of fish, making $800-$1000 days not too improbable.

In the end, it was still an extremely easy day, with us making only one set and still pulling in over $6500 for the boat.

Total poundage for us/co-op: 23000/675000

Total pounds bought from us: 230628

July 8th:

It was another slow-paced, boring, and yet profitable day. 2 big sets probably made us high boat for the day, which would be the second time now already. I can’t complain about making the money I am by just laying around, napping, watching movies and TV shows and making 2 sets a day. It is the definition of easy money. If we can hit our limit for another 4 or 5 openers then we will gross $100000 for the boat before even leaving Valdez, which is pretty much unheard of. Andrew believes that there aren’t as many fish as the huge season 2 years ago, but the price per pound is 19 cents now instead of 10 cents back then. That’s a pretty huge difference.

So tomorrow we will hang out in Valdez and get some boat chores done and maybe gish again on Tuesday, but that is still up in the air right now.

Total poundage for us/co-op: 112000/750000

Total pounds bought from us: 270101

-Jack

Pit stop

2007-07-07T00:07:00.000-08:00

The last few days:

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July 2nd:

We sat in Valdez for the morning, then left to anchor on our set. Once we rested for a while, it was time to once again work on the net. I swear, it seems like during every closure (the time between openers) I find myself working on that thing.

Anyways, not much to say about the day; it was fairly straightforward.

-Jack

July 3rd:

Today was smooth sailing. We woke up at our usual opener time, around 5 am, and prepared ourselves. Unfortunately we were not the first on our set, so we didn’t get our net in the water until around 6:20. It really didn’t matter though; there was a mass amount of fish. In fact, we ended up with extra fish in our net, because fish were sinking the corks and escaping from the net of the guy in front of us. We probably had around 100000 pounds in the net before we picked up, and then lost some while we brought the net in. I think once the bag was up alongside the boat it still contained about 60000-70000 pounds of fish. It was really too bad that our limit was still at 40000, because we really could have cleaned up.

Anyways, the tender ended up taking over an hour to get to us, but our day still ended up being done by 9. Later on we went back through the net AGAIN, this time to put on our new purse line that the tender delivered to us in the morning. The purpose of the purse line is fairly obvious; you bring it in to purse up the bottom of the net and trap the fish inside.

So I figured up some numbers in terms of my hourly wage if I was being paid on those terms. Every time we get our limit of 40000 in on set, I actually work about 15-20 minutes. Since I get $608 for hitting limit, I am working at an hourly wage of about $1824-$2432 an hour. The only problem is that on days like this I only get to work that 15-20 minutes and then quit. I wish this is what the season would be like until the end, but the reality is that I will probably end up having more 10-12 set days than 1 set days.

However, the really good news of the day is that we are going to start a co-op with the other boats in our cannery’s fleet. Basically what happens with a co-op is that all the boats in our fleet are divided up in 3 or 4 sub fleets, who each take turns fishing different days. Each day the sub fleet that goes out is fishing to hit the limit for the entire fleet, not just the individual boats. So right now our co-op limit might be something like 880000-1000000 pounds of fish a day. The great part about this is that since each sub fleet is fishing for every boat in the cannery’s group, you make money whether it is your day to fish or not. As long as fishing is open you are making money. On days off I might end up making $500 for sleeping in and watching movies.

The next opener is on Thursday, but since that is when the co-p will begin, I have no idea if we will end up fishing at all. Supposedly Friday is going to be open and Saturday is also a possibility.

Jonathan and I had a bonfire on the beach with some of our neighbor boats tonight. I assume there will be another one tomorrow night, and I hope that someone had enough sense to buy some fireworks because we didn’t. The only thing that sucks is that since we are fishing on the 5th, we will be unable to stay up late tomorrow. I suppose it is alright though, because we are getting the whole day off. I think we might spend it hiking and exploring the area surrounding the bay.

Total poundage for the day: 40000

Total poundage for pinks: 111313

-Jack

July 4th:

Well, that was a letdown. We didn’t do anything special for the Independence Day, because eat some heart-stopping American food. The weather didn’t really allow us to. It was nice in the morning but eventually the rain started coming down steadily, and continued for the whole afternoon. The rain, coupled with us having to anchor off on our set by ourselves, made the 4th very uneventful. Not even any fireworks.

July 5th:

Well today was the first day of our co-op. My first impression of it wasn’t very good, because while we did get to keep our extra fish it also allowed the lazier members of the fleet to just wander around all day and do nothing. Plus it greatly increases the time between sets and restricts our freedom of how often we want to set, because we have to wait for our group leader to tell us to set. For example, we were out from 6 am to 3 pm, and we only did 2 sets. The rest of the time we were just drifting around, waiting for our time. The entire fleet of about 2o boats was out, so it was difficult to keep everybody informed and there was a general confusion about the day. While I do enjoy the glory of being able to catch huge amounts of salmon, I hate doing the work for somebody else. It should become more organized once we split the fleet into 2 smaller groups, and hopefully it will get some of the freeloaders to contribute more.

After the workday finished up, Jonathan and I gathered some friends up and went for a short hike. The only reason it was short was because we reached a point on the mountain were we kind of ran out of a path. So we just sat on the ridge and hung out for a little bit, and headed back to the skiff.

That’s when the activities really began, though. Some of us decided to go swimming, so we ran back to our respective boats to change clothes, and headed back to the beach. Man that water was cold. We swam along the beach briefly, and then washed off in a stream that flows down the mountain. We probably didn’t even need to rinse off, because with all of the snow runoff and the nearby glacier the water on the river is pretty close to fresh. The surface of the water might’ve been about 50 degrees, max. As you get farther down it gets even colder, and it doesn’t take too much depth to notice a difference. Anyways that was my new experience for the day.

So we should have an opener tomorrow and the next day. I just hope this frequency of openers keeps up, because if it does then there will be some serious money to be made.

Total poundage for the day for us/co-op: 110000/800000

Total poundage for pinks: 151313

July 6th:

Man, today was weird. The co-op was horribly unorganized. We had about 9 boats fishing on a point one at a time. It took forever and didn’t produce many fish. One reason for this set up was that we only had one tender working the co-op, and it was a slow one at that so it got pretty behind on pumping out boats. We actually didn’t get our net in the water until about 4 pm, although we had been cruising around since 8 in the morning. It turns out that the system we are on has the fleet split up working morning and afternoon shifts. The morning shift didn’t due very well, which is partly due to the tender being slow but also because most of them are hopeless at fishing. Once again we only got in 2 sets, with our first being a total failure due to a tangle and the second being very good at about 68000 pounds. It’s frustrating just sitting around all day while other boats are struggling and then having to swoop in late and try to save the day by making limit. If we hadn’t of had so many boats working one set in the morning and had them instead working 2 or 3 at the same time it would’ve been much better.

We didn’t hit our limit today, but the co-op as a whole was only 8000 pounds under (we had 792000 of our 800000 pound limit) which doesn’t make too big of a difference. We were saved at the end by our big set and another boat’s huge 93000 pound set.

After fishing closed for the day we ran quickly back into Valdez for some fuel and supplies, and will be heading back out in the morning to fish the afternoon and then Sunday. We are getting a lot of openers all of a sudden; Sunday will be the 4th day in a row. You won’t hear me complaining though, because in the last 2 days I have made over $1200. I like how I made 630 bucks today for napping until noon, watching TV shows on my computer, and doing only 2 sets.

Total poundage for the day for us/co-op: 68000/792000

Total poundage for pinks: 195102

-Jack

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And here are some more pictures:

This is how we cool our drinks in Alaska; with glacier ice.

I thought this looked cool. It's a nice backdrop.

This is one of the many waterfalls in the area. They are fed by a big ice field on the mountain.

A side view of the Jonathan S taken by a friend of ours in his skiff.

That's me on the corks and fully encased in rain gear as we're picking up the end of the net.

The boat while we are rolling a bag of fish onboard. It can lean a lot more than that, trust me.

Well that is it for the past few days. Hopefully the next two days will be as profitable as the past 2 have been.

-Jack